Some time back I mentioned that things were really, really awful but, as I began to think back on that assertion I realized that things are actually, palpably, quantifiably worse than I could ever had imagined. Bad. Just really bad.

As I write this Malibu is on fire again, but this being October and Malibu being Malibu this development is not a real shocker. Some miles to the east of our latest conflagaration helicopters have been seeding Griffith Park, still a scarred landscape since fire beat the crap out of it last May, which was a larger blaze than the one that began behind the Oakwood Apartments off of Barham the previous March. Shit's on fire here on a fairly regular basis. It's what gives us Southlanders a sense of continuity in this ever-changing world.

In 1993 we L.A. residents experienced a large Malibu fire. From the 1920s to the present there have been many, many burns, with many structures (and lives) lost. In 2003 much of San Diego County was in flames, and without conjuring up the bones of Nostradamus, it is a fair assertion that fires will continue, as they have for thousands of years, in these locales. But that's not what sucks. What sucks is I am living with seven cats. Read more…